Quality of Life
by Artemis Rae
Summary: The quality of life is the quality of your relationships. Five relationships of Urahara Kisuke, for better or for worse. Manga spoilers. 4 of 5: Urahara and Benihime, the student and the teacher.
1. Out of Sight

**Title: **Out of Sight  
**Characters**: Urahara/Yoruichi  
**Summary**: One time she kicks him out of her bed and one time she comes to his.  
**Prompt**: Past, Present, Future  
**Rating**: (This chapter) T  
**Notes**: This is the first of five stories, written for the LJ community 5loves, where the point is to write five stories about the relationship of one character with five other characters. My claim is Urahara, and naturally the first of the five has to be him and Yoruichi. This chapter contains **spoilers** for the current flashback arc going on in the manga, so please do not say I didn't warn you.

* * *

It was the feeling of her smooth skin – her _skin_, and not her fur – that initially brought him out of his light sleep in a pleasant, drowsy haze. He sighed and stretched his legs and smiled to himself, thinking that she must have wanted the pleasure of his company one last time before the morning arrived and he had to get ready for the promotion ceremony.

Then Urahara realized that it wasn't really her skin pressing up against him as much as her _foot_ in his _face_, and she was speaking to him in a tone much harsher than situations like he had envisioned typically called for.

"You may vacate my bed now, Kisuke," she said firmly, and then she turned away from him, and even though he was well aware of just how fickle she could be, he couldn't help feeling a little bit put out by the command.

"But Yoruichi…" he whined, rolling onto his side and drawing her name out in a way that no one else dared to. "Don't you want to take advantage of your favorite underling one last time before he's transferred away from your command forever?"

She still had her back to him but she tilted her head to look back at him. He could barely see her eyes glittering in the darkness, though he knew she was regarding him with absolute clarity. There was silence, and Urahara knew she was mentally running through the insults he had left himself open to with such a foolish statement – _he's not her favorite_,_ she can command him no matter where he's stationed _– and when she finally spoke again her voice was a bit gentler.

"You have your own bed, and tomorrow night you'll have a new one. Go say goodbye to it instead."

He was silent for a long time after that – but still not moving – trying to figure out what her point was. Their bond had been forged from things left unsaid and the way they understood each other, but it wasn't until Yoruichi sniffed and flicked her robe over her shoulders that Urahara finally got a clue.

"You know none of this could have happened without you," he said gently, coaxingly.

Never mind the fact that she'd orchestrated all of this; Yoruichi was the possessive sort who didn't like anyone trespassing upon what she considered her property - and didn't take well to those who wandered away from it either.

"Nothing else will happen without you either," he added, when he could sense her will weakening.

"Go home, Kisuke," she said finally, running one hand through her bangs and gesturing vaguely towards the window. To pretend that she never cared was generally her short-term solution when she found her pride insulted, especially if the insult was of her own making. "You're not under me any more."

He snorted, even as he wrestled with his hakama. She glared at him, a murderous glint in her eyes, and he forewent his sandals and skittered towards the window where he normally entered and exited her bedroom.

He paused, one leg swung over the sill, and turned back towards her, a lopsided grin on his face. "'Til tomorrow then, right?"

She slammed the window shut just as he stepped off the roof.

* * *

It was the sound of her padding across the floor that first attracted his attention; it would have woken him up, had he been asleep, though he was most assuredly _not_ asleep, because who could sleep with all this excitement?

It had nothing to do with the fact that he was sleeping on his coat on the floor. Not one bit.

The place was old, and he hadn't had a chance to get any furniture for it yet, though considering the chaos surrounding his and Yoruichi's exit, he thought she'd be a little more pleased with the fact that he'd even managed to get a hold of a place for them to flee to.

She liked to think that she was silent and invisible in the shadows, and she was absolutely correct, except for the fact that he'd long trained himself to listen to the quiet steps she made. He liked to think that when she was disguising her reiatsu he could hear the muscles of her ears and tail twitching, if he really had to.

He lay absolutely still, like a child waiting for the Hollow in his closet to attack, and a moment later her cold nose bumped against his temple.

"Kisuke," she whispered against him, and he inclined his head towards her and made eye contact, grey against amber, before he brought the opposite arm across his chest to scratch that spot behind her ears.

"I didn't think you'd come," he murmured back at her, watching as she closed her eyes and leaned into his hand. "I thought you wanted to be alone."

"I did," she said simply, "until I didn't."

That was good enough for him. She'd been quiet since their landing in Karakura Town and he'd given her the space she needed; there was no doubt in his mind that Yoruichi would bounce back, but he had also suspected that she would take exile harder than he would.

Idly, his mind tried to list off the things she'd left behind, and as expected he quickly lost count.

Yoruichi sniffed. "Hiyori must be losing her mind with Mayuri." Urahara openly winced.

"I don't even want to think about it," he admitted, rolling onto his side. Yoruichi shifted as well, and within the blink of an eye the soft fur was replaced with smooth skin. He was looking directly into her belly, just above her navel, and he couldn't help reaching out and brushing his fingers against her skin, just to feel the muscles tense underneath.

"Where did you go earlier?" he asked suddenly. "When you wanted to be alone?"

"Does it matter?" she shot at him immediately, wriggling under the blanket to press close to him. "I came back."

The next question would have been whether she had come back because he needed her or because she wanted him, but he chose to ignore it in favor of watching as her hand brushed his lips and skirted down his neck to rest against his chest

The answer to that question didn't matter anyway. She was here with him now, and that had been pretty much everything he'd wanted ever since they'd first whispered plans of escape from Soul Society. He wouldn't press the issue.

Her hands moved farther down, and for an absurd moment Urahara wanted to protest – it didn't seem appropriate, their first night in exile, and then he smiled to himself and shrugged as she leaned over him. Why not?

They had all the time in the world.


	2. Double Take

**Title:** Double Take  
**Characters**: Urahara, Isshin (background Urahara/Yoruichi, Isshin/Masaki)  
**Summary**: The first two times they meet. Urahara is dismayed to learn they have more in common than he'd thought.  
**Prompt**: Ugly  
**Rating**: K+  
**Notes**: Second of five stories for 5loves. So we haven't seen a even the tiniest glimpse of Isshin in the flashback chapters, and I decided to make his captainship post Urahara's and Yoruichi's exile. I mostly can't wait for the day that canon blows this little story out of the water.

* * *

The first time they met he let Isshin knee him in the face.

When he opened his eyes again – _not_ that the shinigami had really knocked him out – he found the Captain casually eating an apple and looking supremely unimpressed.

"So you're the reason the Hollow count is so high around here," Isshin greeted cheerfully him, spraying apple everywhere.

"Gurk," was Urahara's answer, as he wondered where his sandals have landed.

"Why'd you let me do that?" Isshin asked, his tone equal parts amusement and curiosity.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Urahara muttered, sitting up and searching for his fan, wondering how he was to perform his act of injured dignity without it. "I'm just a humble shop keeper."

Isshin snorted. "Apparently the standards for captainship have risen in the last few years."

Urahara's eyes narrowed. "And they made you one anyway?"

Isshin laughed at that, smiling wide and throwing his head back, before shaking his head and offering Urahara a hand up. "So why'd you choose this little hole in the Earth?"

"Oh, you know," Urahara remarked mildly as they both tuned their attention to the howl riding north on the wind. "The night life."

Isshin hoisted his zanpakuto and gave a dark chuckle. "Streets are dangerous this time of night." He turned his head away, towards the reiatsu they could both feel rapidly approaching, then stiffened as if he had suddenly remembered something of great importance. With a smirk, he glanced back at Urahara over one shoulder. "I would head on home if I were you, unless you've managed to retain some power in those gigai you're so famous for?"

Urahara gave Isshin his most innocent look and lumbered several steps to his right, relying heavily on his cane for support. Isshin was still smirking when Urahara straightened abruptly, lifted his cane, and with a flash of red light destroyed the Hollow that was coming up from behind.

The smirk remained, but Isshin's eyes widened.

"I'm not sure what you're insinuating, Captain Kurosaki," Urahara said delicately, rearranging his coat. "As I said before, I'm just a humble shopkeeper."

He never looked back, but he heard Isshin's laughter, long and deep and with a slight edge of hysteria following him down the street. "Guess you're good for something other than taking care of Karakura's stray cats!" the captain called before they went their separate ways.

* * *

The second time they met he let Isshin strong-arm him into creating a gigai as a wedding present.

He wasn't sure why he let Isshin do such a thing; his gigai weren't the type of things he liked to play around with. The ones he created all had a definite purpose in mind, and so he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that all Isshin wanted was a regular old gigai.

"It's not fair," he couldn't help whining to Yoruichi, who'd chosen to grace the shop with her presence for the first time since the previous summer. "I could do amazing things with this gigai, and all he wants is some dumb old thing that looks exactly like he does now."

"You're the dumb old thing, Kisuke," Yoruichi responded easily, stretching out luxuriously underneath the artificial sun.

"…Old?!" he questioned with a hurt glance, but she continued on without a hint of remorse.

"The point is to not attract attention. That's why he's settling down," she explained with a wearily patient tone.

"Hm." Urahara sniffed. "If he really wanted to get out he wouldn't settle here in Karakura Town. And are you honestly telling me that if you weren't already a cat you wouldn't want the ability to grow claws at will? 'Cause I can do that."

"The only time I ever use my claws is on you." Yoruichi sighed, closing her eyes and rolling onto her back. "I doubt Kurosaki will need them."

"Well at the very least," Urahara picked up again, "he could let me fix his face. Have you seen Masaki? It's completely unfair that a woman of her caliber will spend the rest of her life looking at…" here he gestured uselessly to the form in front of him, "_This_."

"I doubt she'll complain much," Yoruichi intoned patiently. "I don't."

"I mean, really," he barreled on. "A little tweak to the nose or his teeth, I could even make it so his voice isn't as obnoxious and – wait, did you just…?" he turned to look at her, but she was busy cleaning her paws and wasn't looking at him.

"I just think," Urahara finally said, a far more mild tone to his voice, "that a woman like Masaki could do way better."

"_I_ think," Yoruichi answered with bored finality, "that you and Kurosaki have a lot in common."

He frowned at her and returned to his project, refusing to give too much thought to her words.


	3. At My Confession

**Title**: At My Confession  
**Characters**: Urahara, Hiyori  
**Summary**: Captain and vice captain's personal views of one another.  
**Prompt**: Quirky  
**Rating**: K  
**Notes**: Third of five stories, written for 5loves. This has **spoilers** for the Pendulum arc. I don't plan on the remaining two stories taking as long as this one did…

* * *

Urahara thinks he must just be a cat person.

It's the only explanation for his inexplicable fondness for his temperamental vice-captain, who more and more reminds him of a pissed-off alley cat.

It has something to do with the way she stalks through headquarters, hissing at Mayuri and occasionally yowling when she's particularly displeased with Urahara – her rallying cry of "That's not how Captain Hikifune did it!" is often heard ringing through the barracks – and the way he knows better than to try and cage her, preferring to let her wander to her content.

He's never anything but as pleasant and genial as he can manage, giving her the freedom she wants, and still she rebels, wanting him to hold her captive so that she has an actual reason for her never-ending disdain for him and his research.

She acknowledges him as she chooses. He's pleased to let her go out and spar and pick fights with the members of their division, and on the occasions when she goes too far and tears up the neighbor's garden (i.e. causes structural damage to another division's property, usually the fifth's) he doesn't mind making the appropriate apologies while she pouts and pretends she's above the entire situation and slinks through the halls at headquarters and gives the timid rookies a territorial shifty eye.

She goes out of her way to make things difficult for him and still he smiles and waves and resists the urge to pat her on the head for fear of her clawing his eyeballs out. He just can't help it, his affection for his sneering little vice captain.

There's just something so remarkably… _delightful_ about her, and the way she storms through Soul Society, hurling insults and punches at her superiors. Most captains would cringe, but Urahara smiles in delight at the attention she attracts.

Cats, after all, are good for pest control, and he finds that the longer he employs Hiyori the fewer people come to question him about his experiments.

* * *

Urahara has decided that he's simply easily entertained.

In time he finds that his affection for his little vice captain only grows, though it seems like her fuse only gets shorter and shorter. Their status quo is embraced by both parties, if rather volatile: he pretends not to order her around, and she pretends not to do work.

Hiyori is very, _very_ good at pretending, and it's with something akin to surprise that Urahara hears her voice in one of the labs late one night, long after she should have left her mess behind for Mayuri to froth over in the morning.

He doesn't worry about her noticing his riatsu; it's a forgone conclusion that he's in the laboratory at any given time and so he doesn't feel the least bit of guilt for cozying up to the wall and focusing his ears.

It's clear that she's talking to Shinji; even if Urahara hadn't sensed the captain's riatsu it would have been obvious from the angry pulse to Hiyori's – it's a step above even her most irritated, and it seems to be the level she functions at when Shinji's around.

"For all the time you spend bitchin' about him," Shinji's observing casually, "you spend more time doing work for him."

"Shut up," Hiyori mutters under her breath. She's totally focused on her task, and Urahara tries to remember what she'd been working on earlier in the day – nothing, his mind tells him, since she mostly appears to spend her day accomplishing the bare minimum to keep her job title and uses the rest of it to terrorize others.

"Seriously," Shinji presses, and Urahara is mildly impressed that the shinigami hasn't retreated to the corner of the room yet. "What are ya getting out of this, Hiyori?"

"I said _shut up_," Hiyori orders. The command is followed in short order by the sound of breaking glass and a sharp yelp.

Urahara winces a moment later when Shinji asks in a strangled, high-pitched tone, "Hiyori, what the hell was that? It's eating through my coat!"

"Let me see!" Hiyori demands. "I know he hasn't done any biological testing-"

"_You're taking notes_?!" Shinji bellows. "What the hell's the matter with you?"

There's quiet for a moment or two, and Urahara is torn between rescuing the captain of the fifth division and rescuing his experiment. Finally, Hiyori's voice pipes up again, using that far away, focused on another task tone from before. "If you gotta know," she says roughly, "It doesn't matter how much I hate that jerk. He's like…" she trails off for a moment, as if thinking, and picks up again. "He's like some big dumb slobbering dog. And he's always happy to see you, even when you kick him away."

"But that never stops you from kickin' him, does it?' Shinji asks sourly. Almost immediately there's the sound of more breaking glass coupled with Hiyori's usual battle cry. "Ow ow ow ow _stop_ Hiyori, Kisuke's gonna be pissed when he sees how you wrecked up his lab!"

Urahara, unable to put down the grin that's risen up on his face, decides abruptly that the mess is best left to clean up tomorrow.


	4. Corner of My Mind

**Title**: The Corner of Your Mind  
**Characters**: Urahara, Benihime  
**Summary**: The ways they influences each other over the years.  
**Prompt**: Fly  
**Rating**: K  
**Word Count**: 871  
**Notes**: Fourth of five fics for 5loves. First half takes place preseries, when Urahara is first learns Benihime's name, the second half the night Byakuya and Renji come to take Rukia back to Soul Society. Mostly written because I've only seen Benihime written as a vixen and I thought I'd toy with that a little bit. This is in no way, shape, or form based upon my own little old Italian grandmother. No warnings, except for only the barest wisp of the prompt.

* * *

The sound of her name passing his lips sends a shiver down his spine.

He genuinely dreads the day when this does not happen, when she is not new and exciting; the thought of becoming accustomed to such beauty evokes a sense of true mourning in Urahara.

Whether or not she agrees is still a mystery to him; she rarely smiles or frowns, and honestly her face is so wrinkled that Urahara often thinks that he'd have to be studying her hard to be able to tell the difference.

Benihime is tiny, barely coming up to his chest even before the hunch in her spine bends her over. Despite this he's never seen a shuffle to her step – only a smooth glide which causes her bare feet to peek out occasionally from under the hem of her kimono – nor has he ever seen a shake to her gnarled joints – when she serves tea there is nary a ripple in the cup.

Urahara enjoys his time with her, even if she has not yet taught him a proper command. Usually they sit together, and take tea while he fills the silence; he _has_ learned that she will ignore casual questions, and so usually he tells her about himself, and about the people around him, until the day when she finally holds up one hand and silences him.

"Kisuke," she says, not unkindly and yet still with weariness, "I already know all of this. You're an old soul, and I've been with you since the beginning."

He falls into silence and sips his tea, and when he finally overcomes the nerves and embarrassment, he gathers his courage and says slowly, respectfully, "My lady, if I have nothing else to tell you of myself, may I learn of you now? You know me inside and out, and yet I know nothing of you."

The silence that follows is ringing. Urahara cringes, sure he's overstepped his bounds, and stares down at his hands, trying to avoid any eye contact.

It's the sniffling that draws his gaze; when he looks up Benihime is gazing at him, neither smiling nor frowning, with tears dripping from her dark eyes.

Urahara has long assumed that her dress accounted for her name; he's never seen her without the scarlet and gold kimono swirling around her, and it's when he sees the tears of blood running from her eyes that he truly understands.

"It has been years," the old lady chokes out. "It has been _years_ since anyone has asked such a thing of me. I had thought the information worthless."

"Dear lady," Urahara is out of his seat and kneeling beside her, cupping her face; there is blood on his hand and he doesn't care. "Please do not cry such useless tears."

"Dear boy," she replies, closing her eyes and capturing his hands in hers. "I will show you the power of such tears."

* * *

The sound of her calling his name feels like nails raking down his back.

It still thrills him like nothing else. She calls him so rarely these days, and it hurts him to remember times when he was bright and new and an eager student, and when she was pretending to be a hesitant teacher who truly could not impart her knowledge quickly enough.

"Kisuke."

He barely hears his name over the falling of the rain. Yoruichi is at his feet for the first time in years, winding around his ankles anxiously while he turns his ears and eyes inward and sees Benihime.

"They're here," she says, and her pale eyes look beyond him as she speaks. Her tears have not started yet, but he can see them gathering in the corners of her eyes. "My brothers are here."

"I know," he answers simply, and reaches out to put a calm hand over her winkled, trembling one.

"It has been years," she adds, still refusing eye contact with him, "since I have gone against my brother swords."

"You won't face that task tonight," Urahara tells her simply, and while it is harsh it is still the truth. The flares of reiatsu on the distance are coming from young men. "This is not your fight."

Her eyes flash, and Urahara realizes that her hands are trembling not with fear but with anger. "Which is, Kisuke? We've retreated to this world, we've been condemned for a crime we did not commit, and none of our involvement with Soul Society ever benefits us. I am tired of hiding in the shadows."

"We're old souls, dear lady," Urahara says kindly. Years of exile have not been good to either one of them. "Leave it to the young ones to fight their fights. We'll clean up after them."

"I have cried tears of anger and sorrow and joy, Kisuke," Benihime responds warningly. "But I have never cried tears of fear. I have not taught you that."

"We will have our fight. But not tonight." His hands are steady, his voice reassuring. In the distance, the crushing reiatsu that has been pressing the air close around them suddenly dies away. All that is left is the rain pattering against his toes, and Yoruichi's increasingly persistent call. "Tonight, we'll fly after others."


End file.
